JPH1170863A - Speed control device for bicycle - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To supplement a manual brake to allow a safe down slope running and effectively prevent the wheel lock by providing a different brake system operated by an actuator driven by a power source when either speed or acceleration not lower than prescribed or both are detected. SOLUTION: In addition to a general manual brake system, this device is provided with a brake system formed of a speed control device 2, a rear wheel band brake wire 3 and a rear wheel band brake 4. This brake system is properly operated by an actuator driven by a power supply when a detecting device detects either speed or acceleration not lower than prescribed or both. In general mode, the motor of the actuator is driven to decelerate the bicycle when the speed is a prescribed value or more. When a runaway mode is judged, the motor is driven at a maximum deceleration for preventing also the wheel lock to control the brake operation.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a bicycle speed control device which acts on a brake mechanism of a two-wheeled vehicle such as a bicycle to effectively suppress dangerous high-speed running, particularly on a downhill road.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, to control (decelerate) the speed of a bicycle or the like, a brake lever such as a rear wheel caliper brake is usually operated by manually operating a brake lever attached to a handlebar. Is widely practiced. In order to perform the brake operation manually in this manner, the rider (passenger) consciously holds the brake lever, especially when traveling downhill, such as traveling on the length of the slope and the degree of the slope. The rider will judge the conditions and take great care not to increase the running speed of the bicycle too much, adjust the brake lever grasping power and maintain a safe running speed while descending the slope. Needed.

[0003]

However, in such a conventional manual brake operation, the brake lever must always be grasped, especially on a long downhill.
In addition to the possibility of your hands getting tired and the braking force gradually decreasing, the speed is controlled only by the passenger's consciousness,
If the occupant is a child, etc., it is not possible to quickly grasp the running state, and the speed will exceed the safe speed and the speed will be too high. Was.

On the other hand, when a strong adult is a passenger, the brake lever can be grasped with a strong grip when the speed on a downhill is increased. When the bicycle was operated and locked, the bicycle was swung right and left, which could lead to falling. Particularly on snowy roads, wet roads, and dry gravel roads, slippage easily occurs between the tires and the road surface, which was dangerous.

Accordingly, the present invention compensates for the drawbacks of the conventional brake operation relying only on manual operation, complements the manual brake operation, and enables even a weak woman to run downhill safely. It is another object of the present invention to provide a bicycle speed control device capable of effectively preventing wheel lock due to excessive braking operation and performing safe braking operation.

[0006]

Therefore, according to the present invention, a detecting device detects one or both of a speed and an acceleration of a predetermined value or more of a bicycle, and is provided with a power supply which is different from a normal manual braking system and has a power supply. And a brake system that is operated appropriately by an actuator driven by the brake system. Further, the present invention provides an actuator which detects one or both of a speed and an acceleration of a predetermined value or more of a bicycle and which is installed in a normal manual brake system and driven by a power supply to perform a proper brake operation. It is characterized by having. Further, the present invention is characterized in that a power supply for driving a speed control device including the actuator and the detection device is charged by a dynamo, and these are used as means for solving the problem. It is.

[0007]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. 1 to 4 show a first embodiment of a bicycle speed control device according to the present invention. FIG. 1 is an overall side view of a bicycle to which the speed control device is attached, and FIG. FIG. 3 is a plan view of a lower portion (case C) of the speed control device, and FIG. 4 is a cut-out overall side view of the speed control device. As shown in the overall side view in FIG. 1, the bicycle speed control device of the present invention detects a speed and / or acceleration of a bicycle that is equal to or more than a predetermined value, and detects a speed and an acceleration of the bicycle. It is characterized by having a brake system which is a separate system and is operated properly by an actuator driven by a power supply.In detail, in this embodiment, the brake system is attached to a handlebar. In addition to having a normal manual brake system constituted by a rear wheel brake lever 5, a caliper brake wire 6 and a rear wheel caliper brake 7, a speed control device 2 is provided near a pedal hanger, which is a separate system from the manual brake system. And a brake system constituted by a rear wheel band brake wire 3 and a rear wheel band brake 4. Lines, when detecting device which detects one or both of the predetermined value or more velocity and acceleration of the bicycle, is intended to be properly brake operation by an actuator which is driven by the power source.

A power supply for driving the speed control device 2 including the actuator and the detection device and a power supply for driving the detection device are charged by the hub dynamo 1 mounted on the front wheels. As will be described later, it goes without saying that the power source may be a primary battery other than a rechargeable secondary battery.
Although not described in detail, the hub dynamo 1 previously developed by the present applicant is mounted on the hub axle of the front wheel, and the hub dynamo 1 arranged at the center of the front wheel due to a strong driving reaction force applied to the outer periphery of the tire from the road surface is It is known that the power generation is performed reliably and lightly without any burden on the passenger. The speed of the bicycle can be easily calculated by monitoring the power generation pulse of the hub dynamo 1 that is constantly rotating during running. The power supply for driving the speed control device 2 including the actuator and the detection device and the power supply for driving the detection device are preferably charged by the hub dynamo 1 previously developed by the present applicant. It goes without saying that the dynamo of the up-down type may be adopted.

FIG. 4 is an overall cutaway side view of the speed control device used in the first embodiment of the present invention.
The speed control device is a case body (case body B) 9 divided into upper and lower parts. The upper half (case A) 8 of the upper half has a battery 20 and a winding pulley 17 for the inner wire 21 for the rear wheel band brake, and the lower half (case C) 10 has a control circuit board 19, a motor 11 and a reduction gear. Are housed. In FIG. 3, a lead wire 26 sealed with a waterproof packing 27 is shown.
When the detecting device in the control circuit board 19 detects one or both of the speed and acceleration of a predetermined value or more (can be set arbitrarily) of the bicycle and receives a speed pulse from the hub dynamo 1 from the The rotating drive force of the motor 11 is controlled by a worm 12, a worm wheel 13, and a small gear 15 coaxial with a shaft 14 and a large gear 16 supported by a shaft 18 as shown in FIG. The rotation is reduced and transmitted. The take-up pulley 17 is fixed to the flat gear 16 coaxially and integrally therewith.
By winding the end (commonly known as a drum) 25 of the inner wire 21 for the rear wheel band brake locked to the rear wheel 7, the inner wire 21 is pulled into the wire 3 for the rear wheel band brake, and the rear wheel band The brake 4 can be operated. In FIG. 2, reference numeral 22 denotes a wire length adjusting screw, and 24 denotes a fixing nut.

FIG. 7 is an electrical system diagram showing a speed control device including the control circuit board 19 and the like. The electric power generated by the hub dynamo is constantly charged from the constant voltage circuit through the charging circuit to the secondary battery including the battery and the capacitor. The power generation pulses for the number of poles of the magnet per one rotation of the wheel obtained by the hub dynamo are shaped by the waveform shaping unit, the standby mode in the microcomputer is released, and the traveling distance is calculated by the speed and acceleration calculating unit. It is used for calculating the running speed and acceleration of the bicycle based on the relational expression between time and time. The calculated data is sent to the motor driver to control the rotation of the motor. The rotation speed of the motor is properly monitored by feedback from a motor rotation sensor.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart of speed control (brake control) by the speed control device of the present invention. A situation in which speed control is properly performed by the speed control device of the present invention based on the above flowchart will be described. During running, the running speed and acceleration of the bicycle are calculated at any time, and if the speed is 30 km / h. At the time above, 3km / s
^When the acceleration of ² or more continues for 3 seconds or more, it is determined that a runaway state (runaway mode section in the chart) is not a normal run, and the motor as an actuator is driven independently of a normal manual brake system. And perform the brake operation. As the driving amount of the motor, for example, the step of driving the motor by an amount corresponding to winding the inner wire for brake of about 0.1 mm is defined as 1P (point), and the pulse of the photocoupler built in the motor is counted to drive the motor by 1P. Each time it is performed, the speed and acceleration (including deceleration that is a negative acceleration) are monitored. Even if the brake inner wire is towed, a large deceleration cannot be obtained until the brake operation is actually started.
The braking operation is controlled with the maximum deceleration (which can prevent wheel lock due to sudden braking) within a range not exceeding km / s ² . When the motor operates due to the runaway state, the speed is reduced to a speed of 20 km / h or less, and then the normal mode is entered. At this time,
The motor is rewound by the driving point and the brake is released.

In the normal mode, when the speed becomes 25 km / h or more, the motor is driven to decelerate the bicycle. The difference between the normal mode and the runaway mode is that a gentle deceleration is set for the acceleration at the time of deceleration. 2 due to deceleration
When the speed falls below 0 km / h, the brake is released. Also,
If the speed pulse is not input until after the elapse of a predetermined time (about 5 minutes), the operation returns to the standby mode to reduce the power consumption of the controller. The speed control may be performed based on both the speed and the acceleration, or may be performed based on only the speed or only the acceleration. Although the hub dynamo is used as the speed detecting means, other means such as a magnet and a reed switch may be employed. When the speed signal is not input for a predetermined time, the power of the controller can be turned off to save power.

FIG. 5 shows a second embodiment of the present invention, in which an actuator for detecting one or both of a speed and an acceleration of a predetermined value or more of a bicycle and performing a brake operation is provided by a normal manual operation. It is installed in the brake system. In this embodiment, the speed control device is disposed between the rear end of the outer wire 30 on the brake lever side and the front end of the rear wheel band brake wire 3 in a single-system manual rear wheel band brake system. It is an example. It goes without saying that an actuator for performing a brake operation may be installed, for example, in the middle of the caliper brake wire 6 in FIG. The brake inner wire 31 penetrates the inside of the speed control device, and when the detection device detects one or both of the speed and the acceleration that are equal to or more than the predetermined value of the bicycle, the same as described in the above embodiment. The large gear 16 to which the rotation of the motor is transmitted at a reduced speed is rotationally driven. In the present embodiment, the large gear 1
Reference numeral 6 denotes a pinion gear 17 having the same effect as the wire winding gear of the first embodiment.
The penetrating shaft 28 meshed with the side rack portion can be moved in the pulling operation direction of the inner wire 31 for brake. The penetrating shaft 28 itself is loosely fitted to the brake inner wire 31 and is in a free state. However, the penetrating shaft 28 abuts on the stopper 29 fixed to the brake inner wire 31 to release the brake without manual operation by the rider. Can be activated. On the other hand, since the penetrating shaft 28 itself is loosely fitted to the brake inner wire 31, the brake lever can be operated to freely operate the brake inner wire 31 in the towing direction independently of the speed control device. Therefore, the manual brake operation can be performed as before.

FIG. 6 shows a third embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 6B shows the relationship between the through shaft 28 itself and the inner wire 31 for brake in the second embodiment. As shown in an enlarged manner, the through shaft 28 includes a pin unit 33, a fitting pin 34, and a coil spring 35, and the fitting pin 34 is fixed to the brake inner wire 31 by the restoring force of the coil spring 35 during a normal brake operation. Stopper 29
In the speed and acceleration regions where the speed control device does not operate,
Since the stopper 29 and the stopper 29 can move freely independently of the through shaft 28, the rear wheel brake can be operated by manually pulling the inner wire 31 for the brake.

On the other hand, if the bicycle falls into a state having a speed and / or acceleration that is higher than a predetermined value,
It is determined that this is a runaway state, and the controller of the speed control device sends a current to a solenoid built in the pin unit 33 to push the fitting pin 34 against the restoring force of the coil spring 35. The fitting pin 34 engages with a concave recess provided on the side surface of the stopper 29, and the through shaft 28 and the inner wire 31 for the brake are integrally secured. Before these mechanisms operate, the brake inner wire 31 may be manually pulled and the stopper 29 may be shifted to the left side of the surface. However, a large number of concave depressions of the stopper 29 are provided continuously. Is engaged with either of them. Once the fitting pin 34 is locked in the concave recess, the stopper 29 may move inside the penetrating shaft 28 due to the ratchet function of both, but does not move in the exit direction. For this reason, all the brake operations of the rear wheels are under the control of the speed control device, and the occupant manually pulls the inner wire 31 for the brakes, so that the occupant is strong enough to lock the rear wheels. Even if a sudden operation of the wire is encountered, a large number of gear groups that constitute the reduction gear are moved from the opposite direction, which can prevent the operation of the rapid wire, and can be used on a snowy road, a wet road surface, and even on a dry road. The bicycle can be safely braked without causing the bicycle to swing left and right on a gravel road or the like. In the drawing, reference numeral 32 is a guide for the parallel movement of the through shaft 28. Further, it goes without saying that the solenoid in the pin unit 33 may be driven not only during a runaway condition but also during a rapid deceleration. As a method for associating the speed control device side with the manual brake system side,
For example, a clutch member made of a ratchet or the like is interposed in the inside of the large gear 16 to manually or detect a runaway state at a predetermined speed or acceleration or more and connect the through shaft 28 side to the motor side. You can also. In this case, the through shaft 28 and the inner wire 31 for brake are integrated in advance.

The embodiments of the present invention have been described above. However, within the scope of the present invention, the type of brake, the type of actuator, the type of hub dynamo, the type of battery, and the form of charging the battery (necessarily The battery may be charged by a normal upside down dynamo instead of the hub dynamo), and selection of each control value at the time of control may be appropriately performed.

[0017]

As described above in detail, according to the present invention, even when the speed of the bicycle exceeds a predetermined value on a steep downhill or the like and the bicycle is in a dangerous driving state, the normal manual braking system is used. In addition to the above, the power-driven actuator can appropriately and powerfully operate the brakes, so that the brakes can be complemented only by manual operation, enabling even weak women, girls, and children to safely travel downhill. it can. In particular, at this time, the control value in the brake control by the actuator is appropriately selected, and it is also possible to suppress the application of a sudden brake that causes a sudden deceleration, so that it can be applied to snowy roads, wet road surfaces, dry gravel roads, In this case, the bicycle can be safely braked without being swung right and left to cause slipping and falling. In addition, when the actuator driven by the power supply is incorporated in the ordinary manual brake system, the existing brake system can be used as it is, and the structure becomes simpler, and the actuator side and the manual brake system side are connected by a clutch etc. If they are tied together and linked, even if a strong passenger who is strong enough to lock the rear wheel encounters a sudden manual operation of the wire, it can prevent the sudden operation of the wire, and the wheel lock The brakes can be safely applied without causing slip overturn. In addition, if the power supply for driving the speed control device including the actuator and the detection device is charged by the hub dynamo, the drive is performed reliably and lightly, without imposing any burden on the occupant.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is an overall side view of a bicycle according to a first embodiment to which a speed control device according to the present invention is attached.

FIG. 2 is a plan view of an upper portion (case A) of the speed control device according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a plan view of a lower portion (case C) of the speed control device according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a cut-away overall side view of the speed control device according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a plan view of a speed control device according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a plan view of a speed control device according to a third embodiment of the present invention and an enlarged view of a main part thereof.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing an electric system diagram of a speed control device including a control circuit board and the like of the present invention.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart of speed control (brake control) by the speed control device of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 REFERENCE SIGNS LIST 1 front wheel hub dynamo 2 speed control device 3 rear wheel band brake wire 4 rear wheel band brake 5 rear wheel brake lever 6 caliper brake wire 7 rear wheel caliper brake 11 motor 12 worm 13 worm wheel 12-16 reduction gear 17 wire winding Take-off pulley 19 Control circuit board 20 Battery 21 Inner wire for rear wheel band brake 25 Brake wire end (Taiko) 26 Lead wire for hub dynamo

Continued on the front page (72) Nobuaki Shimada, 3-1-1 Nakatsuma, Ageo-shi, Saitama Bridgestone Cycle Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor Yuki Sato 3-1-1 Nakatsuma, Ageo-shi, Saitama, Bridgestone Cycle (72) Inventor Toshiharu Furukawa 3-1-1 Nakazuma, Ageo-shi, Saitama Bridgestone Cycle Co., Ltd.

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A detecting device detects one or both of a speed and an acceleration of a predetermined value or more of a bicycle and appropriately performs a brake operation by an actuator driven by a power supply which is different from a normal manual brake system. Speed control device for a bicycle, comprising a brake system to be operated 2. An actuator which is installed in a normal manual brake system and is driven by a power supply to perform a proper brake operation by detecting one or both of a speed and an acceleration of a bicycle at a predetermined value or more. Bicycle speed control device characterized by comprising: 3. The bicycle speed control device according to claim 1, wherein a power supply for driving the speed control device including the actuator and the detection device is charged by a dynamo.